Hon Chairperson, the Minister of Labour, the Department of Labour and its branches, led by its director-general, Members of Parliament and guests in the gallery, the ANC requested me to speak on collective bargaining. Collective bargaining, as everybody knows, is without doubt enshrined in the Constitution. Look in section 23 of the Constitution and you will find "bargaining council". Look at the labour Relations Act and you will find "bargaining council". Once collective bargaining is enshrined in any legislation or even in the Constitution, it means that employers will be represented by employer organisations and employees will be represented by trade unions and the rights of either party are equal in terms of the Constitution.
Wage and other conditions of employment are negotiated in bargaining councils, where workers are represented by their trade unions and employers by their employer organisations. This needs to be traced back.
The Industrial Conciliation Act of 1955 provided improved conditions for the resolution of industrial disputes for white workers and this legislation ended racially mixed trade unions that included African workers and the white workers co-opted by these devices. The majority of white unionists in the South African Trades and Labour Council embraced this racist measure, compelling the majority of unions in which African workers were well represented to organise themselves in a separate federation, which the Minister spoke about earlier. That federation that was formed in 1955 is the Congress of South African Trade Unions, Cosatu. This is a federation of trade unions that fought side by side with the ANC until it was banned in 1960.
The legislations that came as a result of the ANC being the leading party in government provides for trade unions to bargain on behalf of its members without discrimination on the basis of colour, as it used to be in 1955, as indicated. Thank you to our oldest liberation movement, the ANC.
Collective bargaining is a collective tool for workers through their trade unions to engage another organised partner who owns the means of production - the employer. Individual workers who have a contract of employment with their employer are much weaker individually in dealing with the employer and their counter - the power of the employer. Through trade unions workers can have a collective voice in bargaining processes.
Through collective bargaining parties reach a collective agreement that binds parties for the duration of that agreement and sets wages and other working conditions. This is also protected in terms of section 23 of the Labour Relations Act, which makes a collective agreement, which has been reached and signed by parties, a law. The ANC-led government extends bargaining council collective agreements to cover nonparties, as a means to eliminate inequalities, poverty wages and exploitation, in particular.
Through collective bargaining the ANC supports and encourages employee share schemes that come as a result of collective bargaining and through workplace forums. I will mention a few examples: Kumba Iron Ore - the employee share scheme exists there as a result of collective bargaining; Sasol - the scheme is also as a result of collective bargaining. Even in Eskom there is what is called gain-sharing, where workers will get a share if the profits reach a particular percentage. [Interjections.] Don't you know? It is gain-sharing. [Laughter.]
With regard to challenges of collective bargaining, the Minister has alluded to the fact that 2012 has been a challenging year. Anarchy and lawlessness are fast taking root in collective bargaining. This kind of anarchy causes South Africa to be ranked number 144 out of 144 in the Global Competitive Index.
The case in point related to anarchy and lawlessness in the platinum mines, De Doorns, roads freight workers and bus drivers, to mention a few. Let everybody join the ANC in congratulating the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration, CCMA, on the role it has played in resolving these industrial actions. [Applause.] Some of these actions were unprotected industrial actions, especially in the mining sector. CCMA, you have made the ANC proud, hence we support your interventions without consent of parties involved in an industrial action.